This invention relates to processing equipment such as a cheese processing vat and, more particularly, to an improved arrangement for agitating the process medium contained in the vat. The invention will be discussed in connection with a cheese processing vat, specifically processing cottage cheese, but it should be understood that it can be used to process various other media.
Various steps in the process of making cottage cheese are carried out in a process vat, e.g. curd cooking, washing, creaming, etc. Stirring of the product medium is required during various steps in the process, for example the cooking step. It has been known to stir the creamed curd through the use of a traveling paddle assembly which moves through the process vat agitating the curd. Prior paddle assemblies have not been entirely satisfactory. Among the reasons for their not having been completely satisfactory is that they did not completely agitate the curd in the vat because the stirring blades had only a limited vertical extension through the curd depth. This resulted in relatively quiescent areas of curd and incomplete stirring of the curd. For the most part, such prior paddle assemblies were of the pusher type with the stirring blades being pushed through the curd. Pusher blade assemblies encounter such relatively large blade loads due to the pressure of curd thereon that the blades must be small, e.g. have a limited vertical extension, to prevent damage and/or jamming of the blade assembly against the vat wall. Stirring paddle assemblies have also been used in the past, examples of these arrangements are found in U.S. Pats. 3,476,364 and 3,490,751 both assigned to the assignee of this application.
This invention is concerned with the problem of achieving thorough stirring of the process medium in the vat, and has among its general objects to provide an arrangement which effectively achieves such stirring.